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The End Of The Library

All of these prospects for the future of libraries sound nice on paper (figuratively, not literally, of course). But I’m also worried that some of us are kidding ourselves. These theoretical places are not libraries in the ways that any of us currently think of libraries.

That’s the thing: it seems that nearly everyone is actually in agreement that libraries, as we currently know them, are going away. But no one wants to admit it because calling for the end of libraries seems about as popular as the Dewey Decimal System.

Comments

The article has some foundational assumptions that are just not true. Our electrical infrastructure is rather vulnerable. Internet access is neither ubiquitous nor the same qualitative notion for most people. Computers do die. Mathematical advances will break through in time the security structures we have and render information insecure.

The Internet is great for many things. Now that I have closer access to the CLEVNET consortium than before, the local circulation crew gets amazed with the things I end up requesting. Most of it relates to information that is not born digital and not found online. The Internet has yet to supplant the printed monographic book form in too many areas.

" it seems that nearly everyone is actually in agreement that libraries, as we currently know them, are going away"

Because this digital supremacist apparently only pays attention to that small group of (mostly male, mostly white, mostly well-to-do) people who have more money than they know what to do with and damn-all consideration of anybody else in society.

I also begin to wonder why TechCrunch is still around, but uninformed digiphilia has as much right to exist as anything else.

Yawn. Yet another tech site claiming that libraries are "dead", yet library circulation is rising in several cities and libraries are more in need than ever.

The reporters/contributors who write for these online tech sites live in a bubble where everyone is computer-literate, has access to the latest technologies, has a job, no one is homeless, and has all the money in the world to purchase e-readers and hardcover books.

I almost feel sorry for these idiots. Almost. People actually protest if libraries are in danger of closure; maybe .000000000001% of the population (and I'm being generous here) will care if Tech Crunch ceases to exist.